Thomas savours yellow jersey after enthralling stage victory

The targeting of Froome has reached a point that Bahrain-Merida manager Brent Copeland said he had told his riders not to follow him because it was too unsafe, having seen his star man Vincenzo Nibali crash out of the Tour after tangling with a fan on the Alpe d'Huez. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) +0.12 5.

"As a Frenchman, I feel ashamed", said Team Sky sports director Nicolas Portal.

"There's a lot of tough stages to do before we get to" the Champs Elysees, said Sagan.

The 169.5-kilometer (105-mile) leg starting from Bourg d'Oisans at the foot of the Alpe d'Huez delayed the resolution to the burning question of this race: Is Thomas really Sky's top option while Froome seeks a fifth Tour title? "Izagirre went, and I had a plan to go early because I had nothing to lose".

I don't know what kind of idiot you have to be to try to injure a biker, with hundreds of people around and the event being recorded and broadcast on live TV.

A man makes a gesture of injecting himself as he he shows his disapproval of Britain's Chris Froome, left, prior to the fifteenth stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 181.5 kilometers (112.8 miles) with start in Millau and finish in Carcassonne, France, France, Sunday July 22, 2018.

Team-mate Chris Froome came in third, alongside Dumoulin, some 20 seconds later in a pretty much flawless day for Team Sky as they made up time on their rivals.

The Team Sky rider attacked six kilometres from the top of the final climb of this 108.5km stage from Albertville to claim his second career Tour stage win. Race officials have since called on fans to "respect the riders" in the peloton.

Although Tour chiefs have improved conditions for the peloton in recent years by limiting the sale of alcohol and having police motorbikes clear a path for the riders, Prudhomme said: "The climb up the Alpe d'Huez was painful".

"It's not a nice situation obviously for me", said Thomas, like Wiggins a former track specialist turned into a grand tour rider.

Marc Madiot, the manager of the Groupama team and the president of the MPCC (Movement for Clean Cycling), which Team Sky have refuse to join, expressed dismay at the manner in which an anti-doping case concerning Froome was dropped by the International Cycling Union (UCI) days before the Tour began.

Sagan, however, went through the first three mountain stages with relative ease and had enough gas in the tank for the final effort in Valence, where he outsprinted Kristoff and Demare into second and third place respectively.